Brutal
The footage on Sunday night's news of campaigners in Moscow being attacked when they tried to petition the mayor of the city for the right to hold a gay rights march was shocking. The punch in the face which Peter Tatchell received was captured on camera, as was a similar assault on Richard Fairbrass.
This is the second year when violence has resulted from Russian gay men and lesbians' efforts to secure some rights for themselves, and in a city where the mayor has denounced them as 'satanic', it's unfortunately not a surprise to see that the police waded in largely against the victims of the violence and hauled them off under arrest. Heartwarming to see the Russian Orthodox Church displaying warmth and love towards all people, even the homosexual ones.
Oh, no, wait a minute. They were in there with the extreme nationalists doing the kicking and punching.
June 8th, 2007 - 13:27
Peter Tatchell wrote in the New Statesman that it wasn’t just about Gay Rights but also about the Human Right to demonstrate peacefully, which is being applied in general to anti-Government groups (I recall a famous ex-chess player was arrested) and eg to people calling for peace in Chechnya